Same Mistake Twice
by Sionnain
Summary: Some things never work, even the second time around. ReedXVictor, set during the second movie.


**Same Mistake Twice**

_if you want to strike me down in anger/here I stand/I'm your man..._--Leonard Cohen

It's nearly three am, and Reed Richards is staring at the clock as if the numbers are going turn and reveal answers instead of time. The lab is quiet, which is a relief, and Reed turns away from the clock to gaze out of the window. It's dark but it's London and the lights shine bright and constant, like living things.

"Shouldn't you be in bed, Richards?" drawls a voice, and it makes Reed want to put his fist through the window, just to feel something break.

"Shouldn't you be dead?" Reed responds, watching Victor's reflection come into focus in the darkened glass. He doesn't like looking at the other man. Victor's face is that same sculpted handsomeness that it was before their mission to the cosmic clouds, but there is something wrong with his eyes. Some sickness, slick and deep, rotting to the core. The Surfer may have fixed the skin, but the damage is still there, lingering beneath the surface.

"Ha, ha. You always were a funny man." Victor is smiling, and he's perfectly still, but his gloved fingers are twisting together like snakes writhing in a pit. "Not necessarily on purpose."

"What do you want, Victor?" Reed asks, rubbing his eyes. He falls into bed bone-tired, every night, from working so hard and from pretending to ignore the growing tension straining the bonds he shares with the others. As good as Reed is at pretending not to notice things he doesn't like, it's still exhausting.

"Now that," Victor says, stepping closer, and his features sharpen into slightly-warped relief on the glass. "Is an interesting question, Reed. An interesting question, indeed. I want the same thing you do, of course."

_I doubt it_, Reed thinks, but before he can say anything, he hears a clock chime the time in the distance.

"It's the witching hour," Victor says softly. He's standing so close behind Reed, Reed can feel the heat from Victor's body. Johnny is hot, all the time, even when he's lazing on the couch or leaning over Reed and annoying him with some idea for sponsorship. Johnny can burn hotter than any fire, and yet Reed never feels danger, never feels like he's going to burn. Victor makes him feel nervous, unsettled, in a way Johnny never does.

"I thought that was midnight," Reed responds, turning his head, meeting Victor's eyes.

Victor smiles. It twists his face into something unpleasant. "Sometimes, Richards, you really don't know as much as you think you do."

_Considering I thought you were dead...you're absolutely right._ "Spare me the lectures, Victor, and your attempts at witticisms. I'm tired, and since I'm actually trying to solve this problem instead of posture, like someone I know, I would appreciate it if you'd leave my laboratory."

Victor moves quick, shoving Reed back against the window. He throws an arm up under Reed's neck, pushing back, and Reed feels the cold hard glass beneath his back. Victor leans in, breath spilling warm on Reed's face. "Remember when I threw you out of a window, Richards?"

Reed meets Victor's cold eyes, and he doesn't show fear. He doesn't give a hint of it in his expression, doesn't let Victor see that sometimes he still dreams about that night, frozen to a chair while Victor wrapped his hands around Sue's throat. Dangling from window, tasting desperation and adrenaline thick like honey. If he were Johnny, maybe he'd smirk and say something like _Remember when we kicked your ass?_ in response, but he's not Johnny, and all Reed does is say quietly, "Yes, I remember."

Victor smiles at him and pulls his arm away. He leans in, close, too close, and puts his mouth next to Reed's ear. "Can't do that, not with all the people watching me." His breath hits Reed's ear and Reed shivers, unable to stop it. Victor laughs, low and amused. "I am sure I could think of other things. I'm a smart man, Richards." Victor's fingers trace up Reed's neck, over his throat and the curve of his jaw.

"Whatever game you're playing," Reed says slowly, staring straight ahead, at the machines and the equipment that have always been a comfort. "It isn't going to work." Reed remembers being a child, thinking about microscopes while bigger, meaner kids punched him with fists that felt like bricks. Science has always been an escape. Part of him hates Victor for being _here_, in his laboratory, which is supposed to be a haven.

_Victor is a man of science. He should have understood._ That's a betrayal, too. Reed expects brutality from Hager and his ilk. They're men who think with guns first and brains second, and Reed expected better of Victor, who used to understand the sanctity of the lab. Now nothing is sacred, and that makes Reed sad, a little. Promise lost to megalomania and a burning desire for revenge. Victor Von Doom is a lost cause.

"I'm not playing a game, Richards." Victor's fingers slide upward, press against Reed's mouth. "It doesn't get any more real than this." Victor's fingers slide inside, rough and too slick and smooth, expensive leather soft as butter. Reed feels Victor's fingers press against his tongue, slide backwards in his throat. For a moment he can't breath and he's choking, and Victor is laughing, the sound warped like the metal on the London Eye. Reed will fight, any minute now, he'll turn his head and shift his body and he'll dislodge Victor and then--

Victor steps away and Reed's mouth is empty, bereft of Victor's fingers, and Reed chides himself for thinking that word, _bereft_. That's not the right word at all. He closes his mouth, aware he's probably gaping like a fish, and pushes himself away from the window.

"Pushing you out the window didn't work the first time," Victor drawls, wiping his hand on the leg of his pants. "And I don't like to make the same mistake twice."

Reed forces himself not lick his lips, forces himself not to focus on the lingering taste of leather. "Neither do I, Victor."

"Mmm. That's just Sue, is it?" Victor laughs at his own joke. "So. Here we are. I've threatened you, you've threatened me. In the middle of the night, in the lab. Does this make you my arch-nemesis, Reed? Are we going to fight to the death?" Victor raises his fists, posing comically, shifting on the balls of his feet. "Mano-e-mano?" His pleasure in the idea is evident in his stance, in the sick eagerness twisting his too-handsome features.

"Good night, Victor," Reed says firmly, walking over to his desk. He switches off the light, his back to Victor. "In the morning, we'll run those numbers again." Reed refuses to give Victor the satisfaction of calling him an enemy, even if it galls Reed to refer to him as a colleague.

Reed hears a soft snarl in the darkness, and he waits until he hears the door slam before turning around. There is nothing but darkness where Victor stood. Reed doesn't go to bed. He makes himself a pot of coffee, and goes back to work.


End file.
